Carrots are go

In the words of Ron Jeremy you need a nice tight hole and moisture at all times. Following his expert advice I've achieved 100% germination rate on my Sweet Candle stump carrots by making sure the compost surface has never been allowed to dry out. Growing in such a free draining mixture as we do it's easy for the top inch of the bore hole to dry out very quickly in warm weather, meaning the seed will either not germinate or worse, the seedlings will burn off just after germination. As I always go home for lunch I've been able to water if necessary during the hottest part of the day, and it has certainly paid off.

With my stumps I've also kept the bore holes quite tight, just 3" dia, with no extra boring out from a crow bar. I just cored out a long plug of sand with a length of plastic pipe and left it at that. I been thinking about this for a while (and it may well backfire) as I figured it was wasteful to have a 4" dia bore hole when the carrots are generally no more than 40mm dia. I also think a tighter hole will help to get straighter roots come harvest time, although I will have to be careful that the carrots don't split when extracted from the confines of their tighter than usual straightjacket....although I think frequency of watering has more to do with this.

This is the first year I sowed my stump carrots before the long ones. The reason being that Sweet Candle needs anything from 18 to 22 weeks to form the stump end, which is always the last bit of the carrot to develop. Also, I suffered poor germination with long carrots the last couple of seasons, late March sowings succumbing to cold weather in early April. My long carrots have now been in for nearly 2 weeks and should start popping through soon.

"Oh f*ck"

You are the weakest link.....goodbye! (And good riddance!)

Progress

Most of my Sweet Candle stations have now germinated.

These are the first parsnips 'Pinnacle' that came through and are therefore the biggest......a long way to go yet though.

My shallots are starting to split naturally but I will be helping these along at the weekend I think. More on that then. Needs weeding too!

The first 8 tomato plants 'Cedrico' were potted on last night. These will be planted out towards the middle of May and I shall be growing these slightly differently this season to try and maximise yield towards the end of the season for some late shows.

I have 5 pumpkins that have germinated well, and I have named them Gerrard, Reina, Ngog, Kuyt and Carragher. I will probably only grow 3 of these and give the other 2 away.

I haven't often grown long beet but I have decided to have another crack this year with a view to perhaps displaying a set of 3 at Malvern. There were only a couple of entries last year so I figured I may have a chance of a ticket if I can grow a reasonable set. I don't usually like growing in pipes but decided on this method for long beet (var. Cheltenham Green Top), with 8 black plastic 8" dia. waste tubes set into a couple of drums that in turn are set into a raised metal bed. The metal bed and drums have been filled with sieved compost from the compost heap that were well sterilised with some Jeyes fluid. The pipes were filled with the same mix as I used for my carrots. I was given various mixes to try but after speaking to Dave Thornton he said he used his carrot mix last season and grew his best long beet ever, culminating in first place at Westminster for a tap root collection. A cluster of seeds were sown half an inch deep in the middle of each pipe. You don't often see CGT on the benches, most top growers using 'Regar' but I prefer the look of CGT when grown well.

First carrots through

Photos to follow but my first Sweet Candle stump rooted carrots came through in the raised beds today, approximately two weeks after sowing. I shall need to crack on with making some enviromesh covers now, so that I don't have a recureence of last season's carrot fly nightmares.

I have had to re-sow about 15 parsnip stations as I just wasn't happy with the seedlings that emerged. I have placed chitted seed of Polar F1 in these positions but I have marked them with a white label so that I can tell them apart from the Pinnacle variety in the other stations come harvest time. Sod's Law has dictated that there was no pattern to to the failed Pinnacles so there is now a mix of roots in each drum.

A couple of days ago my pumpkins all emerged so I now have 5 plants growing strongly. The patch of land a few miles away that I grew 'Heidi' on last year has been rotovated by the owners and they say they are ready for me when I am. I wasn't going to bother trying to grow a big'un again but they insisted. I think they enjoyed watching her grow as much as I did. Hopefully I won't get swine flu or anything similar at a critical time this season and I can manage the plants rather than leaving them to their own devices. I feel sure I could have grown a 400 pounder if I hadn't been so close to death. I shall have to think of a different name for the biggest Heidi daughter. If Liverpool beat Chelsea this weekend 'Gerrard' is a distinct possibilty.

I potted my first batch of Cedrico tomatoes into 3.5" pots tonight, but the 2nd batch sown a couple of weeks ago seems very slow to germinate for some reason and I only have 3 seedlings up yet. The greenhouse is now bulging with peppers, aubergines, onions and a single cucumber plant which is another earlier than usual sowing as far as I'm concerned, in order to try and have a couple of cu's for the mid-July show I'm hoping to enter for the first time this season.

I am now hardening off my leeks, cabbages, brussels and 8oz onions with a view to planting these out in the next week or so. However, with colder air coming down from the north over the weekend I may have to postpone this, even bring some younger plants back into the greenhouse for a short while again.

Today I had some very good news about a trip I shall be making on the 9th May. I shall give more details nearer the time but all I shall say for now is that I can barely contain my excitement. When you realise (as I did after accepting) that I will be missing the deciding games of the Premiership it will give you an idea of how important it must be.

Early days

Still plenty of work needs to be done before April is out but things are starting to come together. I have plenty of onions from sets growing in cell trays as this is quite a popular class where I live. I am growing red onion 'Red Baron' and also 'Setton' which I've grown before and give nice, regularly shaped, flattish bulbs that could even be entered in the 'under 8oz' class. I like to start sets off in cell trays in the greenhouse in February rather than straight into the ground as birds can tug them out when they're looking for nesting material. After a couple of weeks of hardening off I shall now be planting these out this weekend. At the top of the picture you can see my exhibition shallots which are looking really good since they were planted out a couple of weeks ago. These will be ready for splitting in 2 or 3 weeks I think.

I have two long raised beds where one day I shall erect a polytunnel to be able to grow my onions and leeks under cover. The left hand one has white rot in the soil so I have treated it with Basamid soil sterilent. The soil has to be covered over for a few weeks whilst the chemical reaction takes place, hence the various compost bags. This is lethal stuff and has to be used very carefully so I used disposable plastic gloves whilst I was applying it, especially after licking my fingers last season when eating a pizza despite having washed my hands. I immediately felt quite nauseous. Soft twat.

The first potato shoots are showing through the compost in these experimental buckets that I set up to see if I could get some exhibition quality spuds for a show in early July. The large pots contain the sieved compost and nutrients (and the potato!) and this pot is set into some soil inside a large builder's bucket. The roots will grow through the bottom of the pot into this soil. The idea was to be able to keep them in the greenhouse during March when night temperatures were low. I can put them outside if the forecasts are favourable and bring them inside again if low temperatures are on the cards. It will get a bit more awkward once the foliage grows but as I only have 3 Kestrel and 3 Winston it won't be too much of a chore.

In the same greenhouse my boxed up dahlia tubers are showing the first green shoots. I should be able to start taking cuttings within a couple of weeks.

A couple of weeks ago I replaced my leaky garage roof with a nice bright, shiny, waterproof tin one. I can now shelter indoors during downpours whereas before I would have been drier if I'd stayed outside. Whilst I was up on the roof I saw my garden from a whole new angle and took this photo. Sadly, neither of my neighbours share my passion for gardening!

My Prayer

Dear Lord,

I know that I haven't talked to you that much, but this past year you have taken away one of my favourite actors, Patrick Swayze, my favourite actress, Farah Fawcett and my favourite musician, Michael Jackson.

I just wanted to let you know that my favourite Prime Minister and politician is Gordon Brown, my favourite football team is Chelsea and my favourite vegetable pest is carrot fly.

Amen.

First carrot seeds sown

A long day but I've got 32 out of my 48 carrot stations sown. I got 24 in the raised slab and wooden plank bed in the foreground and another 8 in the first of 3 drums against the fence. As I keep saying this is really too close for top quality roots and I know top growers will only put 3 or 4 in drums, but I took great care coring out the holes with the plastic tubing and then finishing off with a crowbar. I really do think that as carrot foliage is so fine and 'willowy' it can get away with close planting, especially as each hole will hopefully have equal amounts of nutrients. It's all down to the amount of time and care and attention you put into the preparation of the growing medium. You cannot rush the mixing but have to turn it over again and again until you're sure everything is nice and evenly mixed. (see my compost & nutrient mix in a previous posting). If germination is nice and even hopefully subsequent growth will be too. I hope to erect a mesh cover over all my long roots before the seedlings get too big to deter carrot fly (and canker in the case of my parsnips).


So I only have two more drums to fill which I'll do over the next couple of evenings and then it's onto the potato planting. But I always feel relieved when the carrot and parsnips are sown as it's most of the really hard work is now done. Here is the view looking from the bottom of my garden towards my carrot and parsnip drums. This time next year I'm hoping to have a walk-in structure over the entire area.

Parsnip woes

Today is long carrot seed sowing day. The drums are ready, the sun is out but I'll be in the garage all day sieving compost & preparing the mixes. Photos will follow later hopefully.

However, my 'Pinnacle' parsnips are starting to concern me. They came through very erratcially and I still have about 6 stations that haven't come through at all. After all that banging on about pre-chitting your seed for some reason it hasn't worked very well for me this year. And those seedlings that have emerged are very small, pallid, sickly looking specimens. I've taken the precaution of putting some more seed on damp tissue paper in a tupperware container to chit, the variety being Polar another F1 variety that I haven't grown before. If Pinnacle shows no sign of motoring on in the next few days I will have no hesitation in scrapping the lot and starting again with this new batch. It will soon catch up I have no doubt.

Meanwhile, I shall make my annual plea for people to make sure they have slug pellets to hand that can be used SENSIBLY! Nothing deals with snails and slugs like pellets and I have to laugh at some of the remedies offered up on various gardening forums. By all means f*ck about with beer traps, piles of bran, copper bands and meditation but rest assured that none of these methods actually f*cking work! Once I have done my carrots I shall scatter some pellets on each drum. Past experience has taught me that slugs and snails have no problem climbing several feet to crawl over sharp sand to eat my newly emerged carrot seedlings. In fact scientists have shown that these little critters can in fact crawl over razor blades without any adverse damage to their snotty selves! F*ckers!

Update

Finding enough time in April is about as difficult as finding a catholic priest who doesn't fiddle with choirboys. It is by far the busiest time of the year for me as I have to get my parsnips, carrots and spuds in, as well as sowing a multitude of other crops.

Last weekend was a good one weatherwise and I managed to sow nearly 90 stump carrot stations (variety Sweet Candle). The past few nights have seen me shovelling a tonne of new sand into 3 new drums in which I intend to sow my long carrots this weekend. I have been lucky enough to beg some seed from Scottish Champion Ian Stocks so if I don't get some major roots this season (after a few years of relative disappointment) I shall be rebuilding Hadrian's Wall!

My mix for both long and short carrots this season has been:

15litres sieved compost
4 litres vermiculite
4 litres sieved sand
2 oz Vitax Q4
2 oz superphosphates
2 oz potash
1 oz seaweed meal
1 oz lime

This did me about 20 stump carrot stations, and should do about 10 long carrots, so you can see how many times I have to repeat this for 90 stumps and the 50 or so long carrots that I intend to do this weekend. I mix the compost and vermiculite well first, before adding the nutrients that have been thoroughly sieved to make sure there are absolutely no large lumps that could burn the skins. Once this has also been well mixed I add the heavier sand at the end and mix again. I do all this by hand but for speed I am going to have to invest in a cement mixer as I do more and more each year. I am not getting any younger. Devilishly more handsome yes.....but younger no.

Monster man

We had a fabulous talk tonight at our hort.soc. given by Clive Bevan, grower of giant veg. He's a real character and he told us some crazy stories such as the time he had to have a crane to lift some 120lb cabbages in pots over his house. A top tip which I'm happy to pass on is to use 3" pieces of rhubarb in your planting holes for things like cabbages and caulis, and in long strips alongside your rows of carrots and parsnips. As he said, he knows of no other animal, pest or beast that eats rhubarb apart from humans. When it breaks down in the soil the acid juices are released and sterilises the soil around the root ball. In turn the plants suck up the juices and become impregnated against attack by pest and disease. I shall certainly be giving it a go this season.

Another thing he was passionate about, and which I fully echo is the need to grab hold of new exhibitors at shows. He told the story of his first show when his onions 'shown as grown' were disqualified because he cleaned them up to much. Another grower approached him after judging and told him he knew he would get disqualified. As Clive said why couldn't he have told him that before judging as he could have popped home and got another set that would have won. The other grower said he wouldn't have done that as he wanted the red card. Clive duly looked him in the eye and said 'well you won't bloody well win the red card next year!' At the following year's show he duly swept the board.

The point here is that we all need to keep an eye out for new showers and guide them in the right direction if we see them looking unsure, confused or doing things that may get them given the dreaded 'NAS' card. So what if they may beat us in the process? We all want the show to carry on don't we? Too many village shows are falling by the wayside through lack of exhibitors and we all have to do our bit if we want them to carry on.....and that means passing on the tips we've learnt over the years.

Cheating German bastards!

Bleeding typical. Those smelly krauts were diving around tonight like downed Messerschmitts and kicking Rooney on his bad ankle. It has not been a good day. I had several cabbages sheared off overnight in the greenhouse by a rogue slug and my parsnips are coming through in a very patchy manner. 20 have shown through in all but they aren't coming through in the sequence they were sown (as chitted seeds) as I would expect...... which makes me worry I may have lost some. We shall see.

Anyhow, Man Utd can now concentrate on winning the League although we will now have to rely on that very fine Liverpool side doing us a huge favour by beating Chelsea in a few weeks time. Come on Mr. Gerrard. What a player. I've always had the greatest of respect for him.

So there you have it. Smithyveg. The country's most mediocre show grower and probably the World's most two-faced man.

A week off.....

....so I've been catching up on the preparation of the plot and assessing where things are at. My first sowing of tomatoes Cedrico have been pricked out but these cold blasts we are currently experiencing mean they are confined to the conservatory for now.



I have had one parsnip pop through in the drums so the rest surely cannot be too far behind.



My Pendle leeks are not too bad, about the thickness of my thumb and a couple of foot high stretched out.



My shallots made good top growth eventually, but it was by far the latest I've ever experienced. I have been hardening them off during the day but bringing them back into the greenhouse during the night. I shall be planting these next week as soon as the weather improves.

This is the bed where the leeks and biggest shallots will be planted. I spread a full box of blood, fish and bone across the middle where the leeks will be planted and also several handfuls of seaweed meal for added nitrogen.

With an eye to a show in mid-July I have got these broad beans popping through now.

This old galvanised water tank has served me for several years as a water storage tank for my greenhouses, but has now sprung a leak. I drilled a few more large holes in the bottom, lined it with a couple of inches of broken crock and brick, and am now in the process of filling it with decent soil. The top few inches will be a mix of bagged sieved topsoil and sand.....more on my intentions for this in the coming weeks. All I'll say for now is .......Malvern!

As an experiment I've sown this old kitchen swing bin with some carrot seed 'early Nantes', as well as some old foot long sections of drainpipe set into the greenhouse border soil. I'm hoping to be able to get a set of 3 carrots for the same show in July that I've already mentioned. I sieved some compost and sand, well mixed in with some vermiculite, a handful of superphosphates, Vitax Q4, seaweed meal, lime and potash. They'll stay in the greenhouse until harvesting. These don't have to be top quality as it's only a small village show. If it doesn't work out I won't have wasted much time

One final thing, as the author of a blog where I try to wind up certain sections of mankind I've always been prepared for the moment one day, when someone walks up to me and, without warning, knocks me out...probably a Liverpool fan or an organic gardener or an animal rights activist. If you ever see me at a show lying unconscious on the floor you will therefore probably be able to guess what has occurred. So it was with some not inconsiderable trepidation of the arse-twitching variety that I was approached at the NVS North Mids District Association meeting the other night by an absolutely huge bear of a man who put his hands on my shoulders and asked me "Simon? Simon Smithyveg?" Just as I was expecting him to announce that he was Peter Snazell's brother, or the President of the Steven Gerrard Fan Club or the secret love child of Gordon Brown's mum, and as I was wishing I'd worn the brown underpants he said to me, "I read your blog and it's a cracking read", and he then proceeded to show me a Liverpool joke on his mobile phone. With that one act alone he quickly became one of my best mates! He also had some cracking advice on growing big onions which I'll reserve for next season. Cheers Bob!